Austrian alliance set to produce youngest leader in Europe

Austrian conservative leader Sebastian Kurz has declared he will try to form a coalition government with the right-wing Freedom Party after winning this month’s election.

Mr Kurz’s People’s Party and the Freedom Party campaigned for tougher immigration controls, quick deportations of asylum seekers whose requests are denied and a crackdown on radical Islam.

Austria’s president tasked Mr Kurz on Friday with forming a government.

Mr Kurz said that, after meetings with all the other parties in parliament, he decided to invite the Freedom Party to enter talks on a coalition – a decision that was widely expected.

He told reporters that his prospective partner, Freedom Party leader Heinzchristian Strache, had shown “a will to bring about change in Austria together”.

Mr Kurz, 31, is foreign minister in the outgoing government under Chancellor Christian Kern, a centre-left Social Democrat.

He is on track to become Europe’s youngest leader.

Mr Kurz said he will try to form a government by Christmas.

His party finished first in the 15 October election, but no party was close to a parliamentary majority on its own.

A “basic condition” for the new administration is “a clear pro-european direction”, Mr Kurz said.

“Austria can only be strong if we are not just members of the European Union, but also actively help to strengthen the European Union,” he said.

Austria will hold the EU’S rotating presidency in the second half of next year.

The only other option available to Mr Kurz to form a majority government would have been a coalition with the Social Democrats, but a previous alliance between the two political forces fell apart in the spring.

The Freedom Party was launched in 1956 by ex-nazis with anti-immigrant and antieu positions.

The organisation has softened its image in recent years. The party’s candidate was narrowly defeated in last year’s presidential election.

Immigration was the dominant issue in the run-up to last week’s election.

Mr Kurz moved his party to the right in the wake of Europe’s 2015 migrant crisis – a stance that proved popular with Austrian voters after a huge influx of undocumented migrants from the Middle East and North Africa.

The Freedom Party had previously accused Mr Kurz of stealing its policies. Analysts say an alliance would be viewed as contentious by a host of Austria’s EU counterparts.